Freshly made baked products are the standard of excellence for crumb-structured, sweetened, snack products whether they are home-baked or purchased from a bakery. Important features of these baked products are their fresh flavor and moist, chewy texture. Particularly desirable are hand-held cake-like snack products such as cupcakes, muffins, quick breads, cookies and brownies. These items are often consumed on-the-run for breakfast or packed into lunch boxes to be consumed at work or school.
Though these products are very tasty and appetizing when fresh, they typically lose their fresh-baked characteristics within a few days, necessitating either repeated baking in the home or frequent trips to the bakery to permit their enjoyment over longer periods of time. Thus, a great demand exists today for baked, ready-to-eat, packaged snack products that are of the same quality as freshly-baked snack foods, but which can be stored for long periods of time prior to consumption without significant loss of any fresh-baked characteristics.
Providing commercial shelf-stable, ready-to-eat snacks which retain their fresh baked characteristics such as moistness, tenderness, and good flavor is a very difficult task. Baked products have a shelf-life of, at most, one week. Packaging can extend the shelf-life somewhat (up to perhaps two weeks) but is not a total solution since most changes in the product which result in staling are independent of ambient conditions. Commercial pre-baked, packaged snack products are often shipped over long distances and generally must be stored for extended periods of time prior to ultimate purchase by the consumer. Thus, if these products are to compete with freshly-baked snacks they must be able to retain their fresh-baked characteristics for several months and, desirably, for up to one year or more. Such products would be especially well-suited for sale in vending machines or for sale to consumers who plan to store the products for extended periods of time in the home.
Conventional crumb-structured baked goods are made from shortening, flour, water, sugar (sucrose) and usually eggs. Each of these ingredients plays an important role in producing baked goods with their well-known flavor and texture characteristics. The ingredients must be combined in particular proportions in order to get the desired results. Minor amounts of other ingredients, such as flour enrichers, leavening, salt and various flavorings, may be added depending on the final form of snack product desired. Such baking techniques and ingredient choices are well known by one skilled in the art of baking.
There are two problems with these conventional recipes. First, these conventional baked goods customarily contain a high level of water. Though this produces a moist, tender product it also provides a growth media for bacteria and mold. The second concern with traditional baked good relates to the high level of moisture in the batter. Upon heating, individual starch granules absorb moisture causing them to swell and gelatinize. Upon cooling and standing, the gelatinized starch tends to recrystalize in a way that makes the product rigid and makes the crumb structure appear dry. This eventually gives the product a dried-out appearance. This process is commonly known as staling. Another type of staling, sugar crystallization, occurs in products containing essentially sucrose as the only saccharide. At the water activity values characteristic of the products of the present invention, the sucrose, which is amorphorus after baking, will slowly crystallize, producing a firm but brittle and crumbly texture.
A number of methods have been disclosed in the art which attempt to extend shelf stability. However, these methods result in significant compromises in the quality of baked goods. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,511,585, Durst, issued Apr. 16, 1985, discloses ready-to-eat baked goods which are shelf-stable for up to one year. These products are prepared with the addition of at least 5% by weight of the product of an edible, liquid polyhydric alcohol. This is said to minimize the gelatinization and subsequent recrystallization of starch so that the baked snack product does not "stale" in the short period of time that regular bakery products do. However, these polyhydric alcohol compounds, like glycerine and propylene glycol are objectionable to consumers who are seeking wholesome food. U.S. Pat. No. 4,416,903, Cole, issued Nov. 22, 1983, alternatively discloses anti-staling bakery compositions wherein enzymes are incorporated into the product to retard staling.
Changing the sugar component of baked goods from the commonly used sucrose to other sugars or combinations of sugars to preserve the fresh flavor and texture of the goods is also known. See, for example, "High Fructose Corn Syrup Replacement for Sucrose in Shortened Cakes", Journal of Food Science, Vol. 51, No. 2, (1986), pp. 536-37, which discloses the replacement of sucrose with high fructose corn syrup to achieve moister cakes. However, this results in a product with a very high degree of starch gelatinization which could, in time, lead to starch staling. U.S. Pat. No. 4,233,330, Zenner, issued Nov. 11, 1980, discloses replacing 10-35% of the sugar and fat content of cake products with lactose to prolong the shelf life of the product. However, lactose is not well tolerated by many adults, and is therefore not desirable in products of this type. U.S. Pat. No. 4,291,065, Zobel, issued Sept. 22, 1981, discloses a method for controlling the starch staling of sweet baked goods by replacing 30-100% of the sweetener composition with oligosaccharides having two or three saccharide units. However, no attention is given to the need to carefully balance the mono-, di-, tri-, and higher saccharide content in order to imitate the texture and sweetness of conventional fresh baked sucrose-based products. Clearly, none of this art permits the formulation of baked products which are as moist and good tasting as freshly baked conventional products, and which retain their freshness at all stages of shelf life for up to one year or more.
It is therefore an objective of the present invention to provide baked, read-to-eat high quality good tasting snack products which are storage stable for up to one year or more.
It is a further objective of the present invention to provide baked, ready-to-eat snack products which have a moist, chewy texture, reduced tackiness and gumminess, and which provide fast mouth dispersion upon eating.
It is a further objective of the present invention to provide baked, ready-to-eat snack products which have a low water activity, making them resistant to microbiological spoilage without the need for special packaging.
It is also an objective of the present invention to provide baked, ready-to-eat snack products which, through the utilization of a unique sweetener component comprising a specific mixture of mono-, intermediate-, and higher-saccharides, achieves moistness and good taste even after extended product storage.